ArryinSeattle

About 4 years ago today, my husband took me on the non-Valentine's non-date dinner that changed the course of our history and future together. He asked me to a dinner for Valentine's, and my answer was that I was not taking any dates for Valentine's that year. It was going to be just me and my dog that evening. He (being persistent) asked if we could grab dinner some other day, and I said, "totally"! "Where to?" he asks? "I really want to eat at Walrus and Carpenter as I've never been able to yet, is it okay if we try that?" He replied with "of course". "How about Friday after the work week?" "Sounds great."

We were just friends at that point. He had been campaigning for months wanting us to not just be friends, but much more than friends. We were pure friends... I really enjoyed being around him, talking, ... lots of talking and sharing ideas. We were not dating romantically. Why not? Not sure, but that's a longer story, which I'll skip and fast forward through. Four years ago from today, my husband took me to the Walrus and Carpenter restaurant. This is how the evening went. He picked me up at 630pm on a Friday evening, we drove to the restaurant. He expertly parked the car, opened the door for me in chivalrous style, and walked us to the restaurant. He expertly told the person at the front that we were a dinner party of two.We were told to have a seat at the bar right away. (I was SHOCKED. This restaurant does not take reservations. And usually, the wait to get a seat at this restaurant is at least 2 hours.) I turned to him and asked, "How'd you do that? Do you know the owner? Do you know the person?" He replied with the cool, calm and collected, "I'll tell you some day". And there you go, we sat down and had an AMAZING meal together. As friends, nothing more. I couldn't stop thinking about how awesome that dinner was. It's one of our favorite restaurants to this day. Mmm.... oysters!

A little over a month later he finally tells me how he did it. This is what he told me. The week before, he called to make reservations. They told him that they did not make reservations. He asked how long the wait would be on a typical Friday night around 630pm. They told him about 2.5 hours. So this is what he did. That Friday, he left work as soon as he could and drove over to the restaurant to put his name down on the list. Then he drove all the way to my place and picked me up. Then we drove over to the restaurant together, at which point it was two hours later, and voila, we were able to get seated right away. Impressive. Impressed back then, and still impressed to this day.

*Smiles*My husband now, he still creates the best gifts for me with memories that I hold dear in my heart.